Pat and Hein’s Dubious Adventure

Apparently, the International Cycling Union (UCI) has solved all of its outstanding problems except for one: How to keep Floyd Landis from saying bad things about Pat McQuaid, Hein Verbruggen and the way the UCI functions. What other conclusion can we possibly draw from the news (hat tip to Jeff) that McQuaid, Verbruggen and company have filed a defamation lawsuit in Switzerland against the defrocked 2006 Tour champion?

Why Switzerland?

In 2010 Landis opened up about his experiences in the pro peloton, spilling the beans on things he did, saw and heard about. Among the claims he made were a few choice tidbits that cast current UCI chief Pat McQuaid, his predecessor Hein Verbruggen, and the governing body of cycling as a whole in a less than favorable light. (Just to be on the safe side, I won’t repeat them in this post, but I’m sure you can dig them up somewhere.)

When he spoke out, Landis was not in Switzerland, however. Perhaps they watched some German television, or French television, as news organizations from both countries have interviewed the cyclist in the past year. Maybe some Swiss news organization ran a wire service article about Landis’ claims, or quoted other organizations’ articles.

Seems to me that if McQuaid, Verbruggen and company really had a case, they would file the lawsuit in the US, where Landis lives and spoke, or they would file suit in the countries where his claims were first published. The only reason to file a lawsuit in Switzerland, in my mind, is convenience — theirs. Perhaps Swiss law is such that they might be able to win. But to enforce the judgement, they would then have to rely on the US courts. And I can’t see that happening.

Why Now?

Truth be told, I haven’t been doing much “social media” lately, even in the Twittersphere. But I do check in from time to time, and I haven’t seen or read any comments from Floyd that approach the revelations he made a year ago. So why file the lawsuit now?

Beats the hell out of me. To gin up some free publicity, perhaps? To get out in front of some scandalous tale that’s about to break into the open? To blame all the trouble over doping and so forth on the designated scapegoat? To divert attention away from the fact that McQuaid is pretty much a total fuck-up in his job, and has managed to alienate the teams and the sponsors and the event promoters all in one swell foop?

The timing just doesn’t make much sense, at least at first glance.

What Could They Possibly Accomplish?

Landis is unlikely to be working in the cycling world in the future. Woe unto any team that might hire him. McQuaid and others will see to that. Yes, one can argue that Floyd has brought this on himself, through his decision to fight his anti-doping case so publicly and so doggedly. But the guy has served his time. And other big-name riders who’ve been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar have suffered less once their suspensions came to an end. Some of them are even riding on UCI ProTour teams again, drawing big paychecks and racing to their hearts’ content.

Need I point out that Landis has lost his money, his marriage, his career? How many more pounds of flesh does McQuaid want to extract from Floyd for not following the advice to “shut up, take the suspension, and while you’re at it, rat out a certain rider from Austin.” Landis didn’t shut up. But he did eventually serve his suspension. And he has given information that implicates a certain someone in doping-related activities.

This all seems vindictive to me. Plenty of others have suggested that Pat McQuaid is less than competent, Hein Verbruggen is corrupt, and the UCI doesn’t do the greatest job overseeing the sport of cycling. How come those people haven’t been sued? For me, the answer seems to be, “Because they’re not Floyd Landis.”

Don’t They Have Anything Better To Do?

Seriously. Doesn’t the UCI have better things to be doing than pursuing their own little vendetta? Doping is still a problem, isn’t it? Or has the biological passport eliminated the dopers from the ranks of the peloton? Is the UCI’s anti-doping program so effective now that the problem no longer exists? I don’t think so.

What about taking steps to ensure the economic viability of the sport? With the shitty economy, and with the less-than-stellar reputation of professional cycling these days, I would think that McQuaid and his cronies would be more worried about how to keep the sport alive, and how to keep cash flowing into their organization (though who knows what they do with the money).

Oh. Right. They came up with that silly “UCI Certified” program to charge bicycle manufacturers a fee to slap a sticker on their bikes. Presumably the sticker would ensure that the race commissaires wouldn’t prevent a rider from using a bike that they claim doesn’t meet UCI regulations. (Didn’t that happen to Cancellara last year?) Almost sounds like extortion, when you get down to it.

Here’s a thought: How about a program to draw more juniors into the sport? Without younger riders coming up, the sport will not survive. And yet, in some countries (like the US), the average racing cyclist is in his mid- to late-30s. (Yes, “his.” The sport here also needs to attract more women, as well as sponsors who will support women’s cycling at the professional and amateur levels.)

Or: How about settling their feuds with various event promoters? Or how about working to ensure rider safety? That’s always a concern. Sure cycling has inherent dangers, but the UCI should be working with the race organizers to make sure that the courses are as safe as possible.

“All I can hope is that cycling fans are starting to understand why I was afraid to tell the truth five years ago after winning the Tour de France,” Landis said in a statement emailed to ESPN.com Wednesday. He said he has not been formally served or otherwise notified of any lawsuit.

Perhaps he will be served or notified in the near future. Or perhaps not. Maybe all of this is just a way for McQuaid and his gang to twist the knife a little deeper. To remind Floyd that his kind isn’t wanted in the cycling world. Whatever their motivation, it’s high time for Pat and Hein to quit this dubious adventure. The money and time could be better spent on activities that would actually improve cycling and its image throughout the sporting world.

First, yes: this lawsuit is a waste of time, effort, money. Like you said.

This is not my area of legal expertise, but a few legal thoughts: the UCI boys are suing in Switzerland because that’s where the UCI is. As a general rule, tort jurisdiction arises where the harm took place, and arguably the harm to the reputation of these gentlemen took place in the community where their characters were, um, defined.

Pat and Hein would never sue in the U.S., because the U.S. is one of the worst places on earth for a public figure to bring a defamation suit. First Amendment, you know, and freedom of speech.

My questions relate more to jurisdiction. Assume that the UCI boys get a default defamation judgment in Switzerland because Floyd doesn’t care what happens in Switzerland. How will the Swiss courts reach Floyd in San Diego County, or wherever he’s living now? Is the Murietta Sheriff going to come and repossess Floyd’s bike?

Here we go again. Personally I would like to have Oliver Sacks’s opinion on what is wrong with Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen; I don’t suppose there’s any possibility he’d make an exception in a case of international import?http://www.oliversacks.com/contact/medical-consultation/

Mind you, they’re still going to have to comply with the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters. Whole thing is over here if you want a fast education in private international law. http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=44

Thanks Liggett junkie. I took a quick look at the links. Interesting reading. I’ll have to give it a more thorough read after work.

Something I didn’t point out in the original post that Neil Browne points out is that if the UCI actually continues with their madness, Landis would be able to request any manner or documents via the discovery process.

if the lawsuit actually comes to fruition he will have the power of discovery – meaning the UCI will be compelled to give him all their documents, depositions, as well as access to any witness they may have. Discovery is very broad and doesn’t have to be limited to just the lawsuit against Landis. The question is – does the UCI want Landis to have that kind of access?

Kind of makes me think of the line from Dirty Harry.

I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

They’d better think this through before they unleash their lawsuit. A whole lot of egg could be landing squarely on the faces of Pat and Hein.

Shades of Judge “Dog Whisperer” Cassuto all over again. I have not read Liggett junkie’s links, yet, but assume they address the process of service with the primary difference here, vs Cassuto, being this is a civil matter vs allegedly criminal. Different set of circumstances, different governing authorities, different procedures.

The action by UCI, McQ, HVB is a load a crap, but it would be interesting, and have an element of karmic justice, if because the bureaucrats flew off the handle and miscalculated, it resulted in the opening of Pandora’s box revealing their history of graft and corruption (allegedly).

It is maddening that they have concentrated on this petty issue while apparently ignoring more important issues threatening the sport. For instance, various cycling outlets are reporting on the subject of UCI’s current point system being a detriment to competition. (System discourages teams supporting riders for potential wins in top points paying races if those riders are likely transferring to another team, and carrying their points with them, next season):http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/is-the-ucis-points-system-destabilising-the-sport

It appears McQuaid and friends don’t know how or care to prioritize and address those issues that have a direct and immediate effect on the “integrity” of top level road bike racing, YMMV.

REALLY? REALLY?!!! Floyd Freakin Landis was “TOO AFRAID TO TELL THE TRUTH 5 years ago”? But, apparently he was NOT too “AFRAID” to travel around this country COMMITTING FRAUD!

The only reason, ONLY REASON, I don’t want the UCI to strip Landis of every penny left in his pathetic pockets is that I won’t EVER get MY freakin money back!

BTW, does this guy even HAVE a job yet? if not, how exactly does he expect to pay for THIS “defense”? And here I’ve been waiting the last 6 months for the ETA of when I can expect the 1st of my several repayments…

I’m guessing that Cesar Milan would like some royalties from Judge Cassuto right about now. 😉

TEST,

Did we pass or fail?

SMTML,

No idea if Landis has a paying job or, if not, who’s supporting him. Maybe he’s working at the car wash in front of the shack that Neil Browne occasionally mentions. I’m guessing it will be a while before you see any money, though.

Not to take the words out of Bill Hue’s mouth, but over on Twitter he pointed out that the rules of discovery are different in Swiss courts. More to the point, he says the Swiss Civil Code does not grant discovery like we know it here in the US. If the case goes to trial there, Landis might not have access to very much in the way of incriminating documentation.

One other thing he points out is that the costs and burden to pay trial costs and discovery are different and favor the UCI. If this is more than just Pat McQuaid being his usual blowhard self, I can see a method to their madness. Sort of.

Hey “Show ME”. Uh, you have to remember. He was NOT guilty of for which he was accused and found guilty (Testosterone doping), but he ADMITTED guilt for EPO and HGH and maybe insulin injections, though I can’t recall. The lab MISSED all of that. So, before you go off again, you have to look at the context behind the defense.

I wouldn’t have hired anyone at AFLD to fill prescriptions at a Walgreens, given their spotty history, and the shameless way the AFLD hid evidence of their own bungling. I’ll wait for AFLD’s and the UCI’s and WADA and CAS’ apologies before asking Floyd for a dime back.

And Show – he’s approachable, so gut up and contact him and direct your rants at him, not about him.

Should I recall you that you were one of those stating that Landis didn’t dope, same for Lance and so.

You pretended to have some knowledge about cycling and you sell advices about it. Seems for me that you are incompetent too, at minimal. If I would have really bait you, I could have said you were accomplice trying to cover their dopings.

Rant,
Yup, it’s a shame an expert at his craft such as Cesar Milan gets associated with a hack like Cassuto.

For “Show Me”….,
R Wharton does have a point. With minimal research, you can locate Floyd. He’s quite approachable. Talk with him. Perhaps the two of you can arrange to settle your complaint? If that’s too much trouble for you, then p&ss off.

My “COMPLAINT” is that I want my money back. For his cough-spit..”DEFENSE”..cough-spit. And if you have his email, put it up here. I live on the opposite coast so will not be running into him anytime soon. And yeah – I have the PROOF of what I sent him via the FFF.

And for the record, Landis repeatedly said he did not dope with anything, ever, not just in the Tour, but throughout his career. In countless interviews, on DP Forum, & face to face to people in those sham ‘town-meeting’-like farces. He also TESTIFIED to that “fact” under oath.

And btw, Landis SAID he “wanted to give the money back”. Soon as he got a job. Well, what the hell’s he waiting for? What’s he been doing since last May?!

Not my site at all.
Not arguing guilt or innocence.
You knew, or should have known, he lived in California when you freely contributed w/o being coerced via a gun to the head.
You knew, or should have known, there was the possibility that he was not being truthful, yet you gave anyway.
He is not hiding out.
His whereabouts are relatively easy to determine.
Assuming you are reasonably intelligent, you have tools at your disposal to make contact and negotiate a settlement.
That doesn’t mean it will be handed to you, however, if you put forth the effort then you may get the result you state you desire?
I personally doubt your motives as past/current history indicates you’d rather b!t$h, moan, whine, and complain to infinity and beyond than to actually take any practical steps toward resolution.
That sums up my complaint with your (non)approach.
If that irritates you, then I view it as repayment for the enduring your broken record monologue on the subject.
Shall we call it even and move on?

…..and sorry Jean C, I have to agree with R Wharton writing,
“I wouldn’t have hired anyone at AFLD to fill prescriptions at a Walgreens, given their spotty history, and the shameless way the AFLD hid evidence of their own bungling.”
Good stuff. YMMV

I’m no proponent of doping, outside of Beet Juice and Fish Oil, oh, and a lot of sweat equity.

Landis didn’t take Testosterone in 2006.

Your colleagues at AFLD claim to have found it, which was soundly disproven in several independent observations. It wasn’t there. Ever. Thus, he FOUGHT the charges.

He was convicted on said ‘evidence’.

Now 3 or 4 years later, it comes out that he was taking everything else. Yet, the cross-eyed girls and their lab-coated boss MISSED it. They didn’t detect EPO, they didn’t detect HGH. Huh, how bout that?

Anyone see the crossed tracks here? That you don’t speaks volumes.

Did he GENERICALLY dope? Yup. But again, you can’t convict on such shoddy evidence and later admission of guilt for said infractions. That you continue to fire your shotgun of blame speaks volumes about your zeal to convict.

And since this thread is really about the UCI and not about Floyd, they’re PLENTY guilty of screwups and coverups, but they get to hide or destroy their paperwork and hard drives. It ain’t right.

Heaven help you if you’re ever accused of something you didn’t do, you two. Good luck.

I have NO money to hire a lawyer. If I did, I would have already sued not just FRAUD LANDIS, but Arnie Becker, Dr Brent Kay, those 2 guys behind the FFF, & anyone else I thought KNEW Landis had doped & encouraged him to DEFRAUD the public b y asking for money for his LIE of a “defense”. It’s called CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD.

And again, if you have Landis email – list it. And tell me – have you heard of ANYONE else getting their money back from Landis? If it’s so EASY, there must be thousands waving their cash around already.

As for “moving on”, HAH. Every DAMN DAY that goes by, I am MORE enraged. By Landis, his co-conspirators & last, but not least, by his die-hard pathetic apologizers.

And as for ‘broken record’, HAH. That makes one fit right in the comment section of this site!

For the record: I love every single word that SMTML says. Each of her posts makes me feel happy inside. If she has ever said anything uncivil to anyone who posts here, except in self-defense, I’ve never read it.

This is a site that’s been very, very nice to Floyd, in all of his various incarnations. That’s fine. I WILL point out that this site has discussed the Barry Bonds perjury trial, and many here were pleased to see that Bonds was convicted. So I think it’s fair to point out that a perjury case against Floyd Landis would be open-and-shut. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Floyd is lucky that no one cared to press this case against him.

A criminal case of fraud could also have been brought against Floyd. That would have been more difficult.

I got my head handed to me around here for asking how anyone could possibly forgive Floyd for having lied to us, or (harder for me to accept) how anyone could possibly have blamed themselves for giving Floyd any money. OK. It was hard for me, but I was forced to accept that people I respect might see the Fairness Fund business differently than I do.

Chacun à son goût. (which is also my way of saying, to no one in particular except perhaps my friend Jean C, that insults thrown at the French, as a people and a nation, are deeply offensive to me. If you want to talk about speaking with accents, we U.S. citizens would all be speaking with British accents if it wasn’t for the French. Also, we’d be drinking a lot of tea, and we probably would have been required by law to watch the royal wedding.).

But now that y’all have taught me to respect the opinions of others here, you should respect SMTML’s opinion as well. She is absolutely right. Floyd lied to people in an effort to get them to give him money. He has not returned any of that money, nor has he made any effort to do so. People have done hard time for doing less. I was brought up in a tradition that requires me to DO something after I say I’m sorry. If Floyd cannot repay SMTML, he could have volunteered his time at a soup kitchen or taken some other concrete step that IS within his power in order to try to make things right. (I hope he HAS done something like that — I respect the reasons why someone would prefer to give charity anonymously.)

Write on, SMTML! I remain your loyal fan (though my previous offer to take you out for a beer to thank you for writing what you write, having never been accepted, HAS expired)

Larry,
Good point on the English accent and the tea thing. If not for our French friends, with some credit to Ben Franklin for having the skill to make the right friends while “charming” some of their wives and daughters, but I digress….

I err if I ever write to offend the French people, however offense is intended toward AFLD (and its former acronym-LNDD) for the crap science and cover-up they foisted on us with Floyd’s case and others. Summary: no offense intended generically toward citizens of France. Much offense intended toward AFLD and various other alphabet soup crooks.

I took SMTML’s posts seriously for a short while. Floyd did wrong and I can understand the frustration of feeling/being ripped off. An angry rant or two? Sure! Especially on this forum. I begs for it. It doesn’t beg for serial broken record rants. Some new content please. And as an aside, why does SMTML consider him/herself to be at the front of the mythical line for a FFF refund? Does SMTML have some special status vs other donors???

Hopefully SMTML is now posting more as a joke to blow off some cathartic steam? Otherwise SMTML would appear to be losing a grip on the big picture/reality, and might be in need of some professional intervention? People get ripped off every day.

I’m quite certain Brookstone recently ripped me off on a Mother’s Day purchase I made that was at least equal in dollar value to what SMTML lost to FFF, and said Brookstone has no intention of making it right. Customer non-service seems to be Brookstone’s company creed? What shall I do now that I’ve gotten no satisfaction from customer service or management? I guess I’ll write one or two bad reviews on consumer websites, mention it here on Rant in one post, and tell a combination of 100 friends/families/acquaintances about my terrible experience with Brookstone (company reps I’ve been in contact with can’t possibly know who their mother is) and advise them not to do business with them. I’ll also hope Brookstone goes Chapter 7 sometime soon. A customer hostile company should not stay in business. Other than that, the gifts were not delivered on time or in accordance with their advertisement (promise), the value is lost, and the money was wasted. Such is life. I’ve taken reasonable steps to get near even and will move on. To do more than that would be a waste of time, effort, and would serve to cost me more money, adding insult to injury. Sometimes cutting your losses and moving on is just the smart course to take.

Take some personal responsibility and do something proactive to resolve your problem or cut your losses and move on and you win. Fail to take proactive steps, throw repetitive electronic tantrums, stay angry, expend emotional capital in addition to the real capital already misplaced, and you lose.

While SMTML’s broken record posts are a minor irritation to me, I can solve that by informally putting them on ignore, and will move on myself. That likely makes this my last rant on the subject. Nothing terribly personal and reasonably civil. Cheers.

Jeff, OK, you and I are now cool about France. BTW, based on my personal experience in France, kudos to Ben Franklin. He did a lot better with the ladies there than I did. I also struggled in French-speaking Canada. But I digress.

Back in the day, I was a sharp critic of AFLD. But in the Landis case, AFLD got examined, scrutinized and picked over in a way that was unprecedented at the time, and is unlikely to ever happen again. We have no evidence that they are better or worse than any other lab. Their “crap science” (and I agree with that characterization) is the same relied upon by every other WADA lab.

I don’t feel the need to defend SMTML, for my money she does a fine job defending herself. I think that in this case SMTML was reacting to Landis’ statement to the effect that his fear of a UCI libel lawsut was what kept him from telling the truth from the beginning. If that’s the way you understand his statement, then, well … I’ll be nice and say that I agree with SMTML on that one. She then made the point, again quite logically, that Landis did not limit his nontruths to those areas that UCI might have sued him over. Given Rant’s sympathy for Landis’ situation (and for that matter, my sympathy in comment #1 here), I think that SMTML DID have something new and topical to say. Your opinion may vary.

Instead of speaking for SMTML, let me speak for me. I don’t think the issue is the money. The issue is the lying, and the fraud, and the breach of trust. The issue is what I see as Landis’ essentially unrepentent nature (he HAD to lie! or UCI would have sued!). If Floyd sought my advice, I’d have told him not to do anything that might make it seem like he was blaming his lying on someone else. In my view, Landis has taken little personal responsibility for what he did, and with his last statement, he brought down his personal level of self-responsibility by about a half-notch.

Yes, people get ripped off every day. In most cases, the people who are ripped off get our sympathy, and the people doing the ripping off get our condemnation (but sorry about your experience with Brookstone). Landis ripped people off, and then confessed that he’d lied about doping, and he was treated around here and elsewhere like a hero, while people like SMTML were treated like dupes, like they should have known better. Not nice.

For me, it’s not about the money. He’s never going to pay it back. He’s never going to have the money to pay it back. It’s about Landis taking a concrete step to indicate he’s sorry for the harm he caused, and to do a little good to try and make up for the wrong he did. Until he does so, everything he’s said over the past year will feel self-serving to me, just a part of his seeking revenge against his self-perceived enemies.

Not that I have any intention of buying something from Brookstone, but I’ll have even less desire to do so having heard about your experience.

Larry,

My feelings about the whole Landis situation are mixed and somewhat complicated. On the one hand, I take responsibility for wasting money that could have been better spent on other things, but that I gave for his defense. On the other hand, I feel duped, because he knew the truth and chose to finesse things.

Floyd may or may not have actually used testosterone in 2006, but he admits to other stuff. So claiming he hadn’t doped at all was untrue. By rights, I ought to feel the kind of righteous indignation that SMTML feels. After all, I was one of the big cheerleaders in his defense.

But I don’t. I can’t explain why. Perhaps it’s my childhood cynicism coming back to me. My friends and I way back in the late 60s and early 70s figured that pro athletes would do whatever it takes — including performance-enhancing drugs — in order to get the results expected of them. Floyd’s case and a whole lot of others suggest that it is as true in 2011 as it was in 1969.

I, too, would like to see Floyd do some good for the sport and make up for what he did before. I hope that what he’s been doing the past year is part of that effort. And I hope that this effort is not merely to exact revenge.

In some of his comments a year ago, Landis appeared to be contrite and repentant, expressing that he would like to pay people back. Bonnie Ford wrote a couple of the articles where he spoke in those terms. I agree that he’s unlikely to pay people back — at least anytime soon — as I have no idea how he might earn enough money to do so.

Perhaps he may eventually be able to scrape together the cash to pay back SMTML. I don’t know if that would truly appease her anger, but maybe it would be a start. I know Floyd is approachable, as Jeff and RW have pointed out. Maybe it would be enough for her to express her feelings directly to him? But I can’t speak for SMTML.

Given the magnitude of what occurred, what would it take from Floyd to make things right? Repayment of the money donated? A simple, personal “I’m sorry.”? Working to clean up the sport? Or … ?

Meanwhile, the UCI continue to miss the point about what their priorities should be.

And a young rider with his whole life ahead of him passed away after crashing on a descent during the Giro. Rest in peace, Wouter Weylandt.

I’ll head back to researching something political now, for a potential post on that dormant site once known as “Rant 2.0”.

About “crap science of any lab”, don’t forget that we get what we pay for. As pointed by Richard, only T was found in Landis’ urine despite being doped with a lot of drugs. It was the same for Marion Jones and many other athletes.
But at least they never have hidden positive tests like did other labs and federations in the past.

To put things in balance, I do prefer to pay more for health analyse than to analyse piss and blood of athletes. And as I have pointed many times, there is less errors in anti-doping tests than in justice or medical case.

Even if Landis is persuaded to have not taken T during that TDF, he can’t be sure because people who inject them don’t say everything, and/or some product can have T within, contaminated or not.
I am sure that Richard is going to explain us the reasons of the attempt to destroy the testing of B sample by Landis’ team if there were no T. To take the risk to be caught doing that would have been a positive test but even a positive B that would have been an error of testing could have been demonstrated later. For me, in case of Landis didn’t have taken T, it would have been a stupid bet.

About my anonymity, because I don’t need advertising, and more I don’t need to be threatened or bullied like O’Reilly or Bassons and many other people, I don’t see any reason to give my name here to be the target of stupid fans refusing to admit the doping of their heroes despit lots of clues or evidences.

To put everything in order, since the first times I said that Landis not only used T but blood doping with no doubt.
Landis cheated, then lied about it, defrauded people with the help of others, and now is trying to cure his sins by exposing the doping mafia from Ferrari to Armstrong, he is trying to become a better man, I hope that he could refund the gullible fans that have given money to FFF.

Larry wrote:
“Back in the day, I was a sharp critic of AFLD. But in the Landis case, AFLD got examined, scrutinized and picked over in a way that was unprecedented at the time, and is unlikely to ever happen again. We have no evidence that they are better or worse than any other lab.”

If a variety of testimony given in the Malibu hearing can be considered evidence, then we can at least infer the UCLA lab did a much better job at took some care to cross their T’s and dot their i”s. Their Director’s “circle the wagons” testimony aside, the Montreal lab has a good reputation considering the authority under which their work is conducted. My impression is there are a at least two European Labs (not LNDD) that operated without chronic disregard to their own documented SOP in 2006.

If WADA Mission Statements and those of their accredited labs are not complete bravo sierra, then the scrutinization LNDD endured in Malibu which was also publicized in the press, while painful to the reputation of the LNDD and its employees, was nonetheless a positive for the anti-doping movement and perhaps the lab as well?

In grade school, students are routinely required to explain how they solved a word problem in Math. This helps to confirm the student understands the process and reduces the opportunity for cheating. Highly educated lab technicians should be held to no less of a standard than grade school students. They should fully appreciate the necessity of defending one’s work. The portions of WADA’s Code that seek to shield labs and lab techs from the possibility of having to defend their work are void of intellectual integrity, inviting corruption and cheating.

If WADA cared about the science and cared about integrity of their product, then they would have written revisions to the Code to include peer review and enhanced oversight. The fallout from the Malibu hearing showed some of LNDD’s/WADA’s worst flaws and was a clear mandate to do better. What was WADA’s response? They revised the Code to tighten the wagon circle make the process more secretive and less reviewable. It’s a shame WADA has taken steps to ensure scrutinization of the sort that occurred Malibu will likely never happen again, regardless of accredited lab performance. That indicates a corrupt organization to me. YMMV.

If you live by sword, don’t complain to die by it. That point is taught to everyone since his childhood.
That means that even if Floyd were wrongly caught he doesn’t have to complain because he doped. And, it seems that he is more condemning UCI and dopers for his current situation than LNDD. For me that is good he takes his own responsability like an adult for his doping.

There si no states, no government, no people who are not bending laws, and sometimes for good reasons like Ben Laden recently.

If there is a fight to lead, that is against the facilitators of doping, not those who have few guns to fight a powerfull army.

I am surprise that you still point WADA as corrupt and cannot see the corruption and the faults of other parties despite the bribes received by UCI.

Maybe it should be time for you as other fans to move forward and forget about revenge: Floyd and all people involved in his doping are the responsible, not WADA nor LNDD.

It’s not your job to follow my posts, but you are making false assumptions as to my thoughts on UCI. It is a gross mischaracterization on your part to insinuate I’m at all supportive of “UCI leadership” as those two words don’t even belong together. On this forum, I’ve recently been critical of McQ/HVB & UCI for their pathetic legal action aimed at Floyd’s comments about their corruption while ignoring issues surrounding the race radio feud, rider safety, and how the current ProTour points system is discouraging a number of teams from racing for wins or entering riders that may transfer to another team the following year in high points paying races as their points simply benefit the new team at the expense of the old team, where the points were earned. I’ve also been critical of UCI greed when I cited Leonard Zinn’s article about UCI profiteering from their bike approval sticker scheme and getting their slimy tentacles into the popular Grand Fondos in order to line their bureaucratic pockets. But…….if you are creating a scenario where the UCI and WADA are approximately as ethically bankrupt and corrupt as the other, then I think we may have found a point of agreement???

I don’t think I understand your comment about a fight to lead. In my observation, WADA has gone after the little fish (well known riders) and tiny fish (less well known riders). I see little to no evidence WADA has been proactive in going after “facilitators of doping”.
Maybe they are in a fight to follow?

Jean C previously wrote: “To put things in balance, I do prefer to pay more for health analyse than to analyse piss and blood of athletes. And as I have pointed many times, there is less errors in anti-doping tests than in justice or medical case.”

Yes, I do remember you claiming, on several occasions, that there are fewer errors involved in WADA sanctioned anti-doping testing than what is typically found in bodily fluid analysis related to criminal cases or medical testing. What I don’t recall is cites that defend your bold claim. Your claim does seem counterintuitive as there is the opportunity for more complete review of botched medical tests and botched evidence testing, at least within the justice system in the USA. The caveat being that one must have the resources to pursue discovery and/or a remedy. As to WADA accredited labs, blood, and piss….. I’d rather they actually respect the science and employ the best scientific testing practices available in an effort to fully understand and be able to defend the science, rather than taking liberties with shortcuts resulting in un-defendable and un-repeatable conclusions. Peer review is a critical component in validating aspects of science and scientific testing. That is notoriously absent within WADA Code and makes the whole system suspect. If they don’t have the money to do it correctly, then don’t do it at all. Use a dart board, roulette wheel, or weegie board and it would come out about the same, capricious-wise. While it would be laughable, the process would be more open, honest, and less subject to corruption. WADA, evil spawn of IoC, does it to protect the bottom line and because they can. UCI is little different. Both corrupt bureaucracies with their eye off the ball. YMMV.

Jean C, anyone who doubts the French should see Paris, which as an outsider strikes me as the best managed city in the world. I could be wrong, since when I visit Paris I’m usually too busy eating and drinking to pay much attention to the city management. But: low traffic, terrific and safe public transit, bicyclists have rights Americans could only dream about … and you still do the “plage” thing on the Seine, right? The coolest idea ever!

Jeff, quite right, during the Malibu hearings the UCLA lab came across as better than the AFLD, but that was per the Landis team strategy, to paint UCLA as terrific and AFLD as awful. Of course, USADA wasn’t going to do anything to paint the UCLA lab in a bad light. I’m not taking back a word I said about AFLD back in the day, but I’ll reiterate that the UCLA lab has never come under the kind of intense scrutiny that the AFLD received five years ago. I personally agree with your impression of the work done at UCLA and in Montreal, but it’s just an impression. We’ll never get the kind of view of those two labs that we got of the lab in Paris. Was that scrutiny good for AFLD and WADA? It should have been! But who knows for certain?

To anyone who cares: I don’t believe Landis’ current assertion that he did not use exogenous testosterone in 2006. Why should I?

Rant, I do not expect Landis to walk around in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of his life. I do not expect that he can repay his FFF contributors, and while full repayment would be nice, I personally (my opinion) do not think it is necessary. This is what I think was necessary: (1) a full, complete and sincere apology. I saw Bonnie Ford solicit something like an apology from Landis, but he didn’t lead with it. His apologies were always mixed with excuses, and delivered in the context of many more words explaining how he himself had been victimized. Worse, while he spent some amount of time explaining why he felt he had to lie (like so many doping athletes before him), he has never explained why he felt compelled to combine his lying with public fundraising (like no one has ever done before). I’m left with the distinct impression that Landis believes, and continues to believe, that two wrongs make a right, that he duped people out of money because he was so badly wronged by the cycling establishment. Until Landis acknowledges in a believable way that what he did was an independent wrong, that nothing done to him can justify or explain away what he did to others, then (my opinion) I’m not going to take seriously any apology he may have given. At the moment, I regard his apologies to his FFF supporters as pure expediency, as part of the price he had to pay to get Bonnie Ford and others to interview him. Is that harsh on my part? Probably.

Second: assuming Landis ever offers up an apology that I can take seriously, I (my opinion) personally require him to put some kind of action behind that apology. He’s got to walk the walk as well as talk the talk to impress me. Landis took money under false pretenses, and he has to try to repay that debt. Maybe he can’t repay that debt with money and maybe he can’t repay that debt to the people he wronged. But to my way of thinking, he needs to address that debt in some way. I don’t really care how he addresses that debt, so long as he does it in a way that does some good in this world and that represents a sincere acknowledgement on his part that the debt exists and that he’s responsible for it.

On this score, Rant, I’m personally happy that you were not personally hurt by Landis to the point where you feel SMTML’s righteous indignation. That does not change my opinion of Landis’ situation. He did wrong, and he’s required in my mind to make it right, even if every FFF contributor felt the way that you do.

Wow! Get involved in some other things for a while and then come back here and all this!

It’s interesting that so many people can still get riled up one way or the other about FL almost 5 years after the ill-fated TdF in 2006. Even Armstrong doesn’t seem to incite the same heat that Floyd does.

I am not sure what McQ &c hope to accomplish here. You can’t get blood out of a turnip, and any monetary award they might get, FL is unlikely to have the assets to pay, ignoring any problems in enforcing a Swiss case in the US. Maybe they just want to shut him up, but I haven’t heard that he’s been making any statements of late. Or maybe they look at this as a chance to defend themselves against FL’s allegations.

“All this” is as good a way of describing it as any; “all that’s left” might be better.

Some time ago Mr. Rant and I had an exchange where I remarked that many of his commenters had fled with their screen names and comments about cycling to Twitter and I thought I knew why; also I note you can reach almost anyone in the sport instantly over there, and it’s a forum that lends itself to making fun of the UCI. Mr. Rant replied that some important issues can’t be discussed in a 140-character limit. I guess I’d say, sure, but you can’t have that kind of discussion over here any longer. I mean, I was thrilled the Hague Service Convention came up, because that was my pet project in law school and I can talk your head off about it, but who would I be saying it to? (Jeff, the service procedure is identical, which is why I was so excited when you located the other treaty last year, and the reason they’re the same is — Mr. Rant will give you my contact info if you ask.)

Now that I look back, it doesn’t appear I’ve contributed anything substantive for a year. That last would have been — oh, the third day of the Giro, when I turned on Universal Sports and got an error message and Comcast suggested that the major local NBC affiliate was blocking the feed. That too was an error message and I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize to NBC 10 Philadelphia, because it turned out it was due to weather damage to an exterior cable splitter (and it’s all fixed now, thanks to Drew, technician extraordinaire; conveniently, Universal Sports re-ran last year’s Stage 3 earlier this week). Also, I see I had just nominated the Giro’s course designer for the weekly worst-thing-that’s-ever-happened-to-cycling award. (He’s already got the 2011 competition sewn up. Does anyone have a name? I know it’s Pescheaux for the Tour — and you’ll remember seeing Cancellara lay down the law to him early in last year’s Tour de France — but I don’t know who that is for the Giro and I would like to.)

Then I went off to visit a friend from grad school and to see the great Lance Armstrong at the Tour of California — which didn’t happen, I only got to Big Bear and the downtown LA time trial — and all hell broke loose. It was weird to watch what happened on this site from a distance, and it was ultimately beyond the capacity of my older-model T-Mobile phone to follow — and while it was train-wreck fascinating, I think in the light of hindsight that the screeching and the language of psychotherapy drove a lot of the audience away. For my part, I threw in the towel later that year when some strange person carried on about the elusive ‘international arrest warrant’ and bandied my screen name about some. Not that I anticipate anyone will listen, but folks, there is no such thing as an international arrest warrant, except perhaps in the mind of Thomas “Dog Whisperer” Cassuto, for the very good reason that there is as yet no international government to authorize one. However, by the time-honored legal principle that if you wait long enough, someone else will do your research for you, I can state that there is something called a ‘red notice’ sent out by Interpol (a facilitating organization with no independent powers of detention) requesting sovereign states to detain an individual. It came up in the news reports about Julian Assange of Wikileaks.

It would be nice to see this as a forum for discussion again. I’m in agreement with Jeff’s suggestion, have some of you considered talking over the matters you’ve continued to raise here with a professional therapist? Because we’ve had this, repeatedly. You make yourselves appear ridiculous and unpleasant — imagine how your own friends would react if you kept raising the same issue in the same words, time after time. As far as Jean C’s concerned — Jeff, I’m pretty sure that was directed to me, not you, and the hell if I’ll apologize for pointing out it was the U.S.A. that booted the Nazi army out of France. That’s a matter of historical record. Look for aerial footage of the cemetaries next time you watch the Tour, folks!) But Jean C’s, uh, paranoia is new to me. Mon brave, you’re not gonna be murdered in your bed for anything you say. Get a grip. I mean, Pierre Bordry, erstwhile head of the AFLD, made even less-fact-based statements — e.g., in 2009 he said he didn’t need to look at tests to tell who was taking PEDs, he could tell just by looking at the athletes — and yet he lives and breathes. (It’s true his organization was threatened with defunding by the French government, but as I recall, the issue was that AFLD had failed in its mission by conducting 13 tests on French athletes all year, which made the government wonder what the hell they were paying for.)

There are other topics I’d rather discuss. How I wish I’d chimed in on the Contador beef story when it first appeared. I’m a great devotee of classic 20th c. detective fiction and I tackled the evolving story from the Contador camp the same way I’d read a John Dickson Carr novel, employing everything from a map of the French border to watching and recording an entire tv show on the proper cooking of beef tenderloin. Contador’s story never added up. It’s not that I have a desperate need to tell the world what the cycling press has missed, but this would have been the place.

Another subject closer to my heart is that earlier this year Floyd Landis gave an interview to Paul Kimmage, who wrote it up for the [UK] Sunday Times, and both parties later agreed to put the entire 7-hour transcript up on the Internet. (You can read it here. http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage ) Paul Kimmage, himself no stranger to sleazy practices in the peloton, was gobsmacked at what he heard. (Kimmage is a fine writer and a sensitive interviewer. I think he did himself a lot of harm when he made that crack about Lance Armstrong’s being a cancer on the peloton. That comment made him easy to ignore.)

The whole interview dropped like a stone into the water. The cycling press went right back to reporting on who had a stomachache and whose knee really, really hurt, and then Taylor Phinney banged his head again (that kid is gonna become the Eric Lindros of cycling if he’s not careful) and everything went back to normal. But not for me. I was in tears over the interview Floyd Landis gave Bonnie Ford a year ago. My hobby’s the history of the Tour de France, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. But to hear exactly how these young men experiment with biochemistry just so that I can sit in front of my tv and look at pretty pictures of France to the dulcet tones of Phil & Paul while I have French roast coffee and sometimes a croissant from the local Giant supermarket — yes, I am that kind of sap — what does that say about me?

At one point Landis said to Kimmage, “There is a parallel world where the fans see what’s put in front of them and appreciate it for what they believe it to be and beside it is the peloton who know the real story.” I don’t have an answer yet for him, but I’m working on one.

I’ve been meaning to ask, but why would you be worried about threats or untoward behavior directed at you because of your comments here and elsewhere. Is there anything you would feel free sharing about who you are, where you work, and whether you have any direct connections to the world of professional cycling (or other sports)?

This country certainly has its share of nutty people, but I’ve never been worried about such people contacting me or trying to harm me.

Feel free to contact me directly, if you want.

Liggett junkie,

I have to admit, having seen how the Twitter conversations have gone about cycling (and other things I follow), I’m coming around to the idea that it’s possible to carry on a discussion in 140-character increments. Certainly makes you sharpen your points.

I wonder, though, if the slowdown at this site might also have to do with the fact that I’m posting articles less often. I would think about adding a forum (ala the Daily Peloton Forum), but that might require too much of my time as far as moderation goes. Of course, there are plenty of forums, like the DPF, where people can discuss/vent/rant about whatever they feel passionately about.

Interesting comments and observations. After I read the full transcript of the Landis/Kimmage interview, I was surprised that it just kind of fell flat in the cycling press. Quite a bit there to digest and think about from that interview — and follow up on, were that my fulltime job.

Jeff,

Interesting tidbit about L’Equipe. Is Damien Ressiot back on the doping beat, perhaps? I have to say, he’s got a great stable of sources (although one has to wonder about whether those sources have a particular agenda or not). If that story comes out, somebody is definitely going to have some serious `splaining to do.

LJ, I cannot explain how I know what I am about to say without breaching confidences, so you’ll either believe me or you won’t.

I do not know who Jean C is, but I think I know what he is talking about. Cycling is a strange world. It is full of gossip and whispered secrets. No one exactly gets along, and no one exactly trusts each other, yet there are certain things you cannot say or do and remain within the pro cycling club. One area where the club gets particularly sensitive is when information is shared with people outside of the club.

I appreciate the fact that what I’ve written here is vague, and there’s no reason why you should believe me. But in my brief experiences at the periphery of cycling, I’ve witnessed behavior among those on the inside that would have struck me as paranoid if I didn’t know better. It’s not a life or death thing, but it is a career thing. People inside of cycling are not going to be able to stay inside of cycling if they say the wrong things to the wrong people, or if they are caught associating with the wrong kind of people.

I’m not sure why I’m saying this here. I’ve always respected you, LJ, but I don’t think the two of us share the same wavelength. I guess I’m saying what I’m saying to stick up for Jean C. I want it on the record for the little it is worth that I think I know what he is talking about, and I think his attitude is perfectly sensible. But if you prefer to think that Jean C is paranoid, then put me and Jean C in the same box.

L’Equipe publishes UCI Suspicion Listhttp://inrng.com/?p=3104
Compiled from blood & urine dada values prior to 2010 TdF.
Rates risk factors from a low of zero (0) to a high of (10).
This is information that is supposed to be kept strictly confidential, but is now in the public domain.

Some possibly surprising or confirming results, YMMV:
Now retired Christophe Moreau rates a relatively high Indice of 7.
Gerdeman, thought by many to be a clean rider, rates a 6.
Breschel and N. Sorensen are ranking a mid-range 5 and are getting raked over the coals in the Danish press accusing them of being dopers.
Mr. Clean, WIggins, ranks the same mid-range 5 as Breschel/Sorensen-now accused Danish dopers. Also the same as Contador’s 5 ranking. Interesting.
Armstrong, Leipheimer, Miller & VandeVelde came in at a just sub mid-point 4.
Basso and Andy Schleck come in a fairly low 3.
Frank Schleck, Sastre & Voigt com in at a 2.
Hesjedal and Hincapie come in a low 1.
Cancellara, Horner, Zabriskie & a plethora of French riders rate a 0 (zero) on the scale.

While this information is generating a flurry of posts on a variety of cycling forums, the information was supposed to be confidential. How did it get out? Why did it get out? Who put it out? Who is profiting from it getting out?

How is a rider compensated if their career is trashed for mere suspicion based on leaked confidential documents?

Which official or officials are going to be suspended from 2-4 years for their part in leaking confidential documents? If it happens again, will they be banned for life. If they are banned, what are their odds for a reversal if they appeal to CAS???

I would echo your comments about the strange world of pro cycling. There are things I’ve been told, as someone on the periphery, that would straighten my hair (or what’s left of it, anyway). I’m far from privy to the inner workings of the sport, but my sense is that there’s the way the actual pros work, and there’s what various powers that be want us to think is the way the sport works. Sometimes the public image and the actual reality coincide (like pros riding their bikes), sometimes they don’t (like certain under-the-table dealings, performance-enhancing drugs, and on and on and on).

Landis violated the omerta when he spoke out last year. Maybe by speaking out he will help the sport. But even before he’d spoken out, Landis had already become an outcast, by virtue of the whole mishegas surrounding the 2006 Tour. Even if he’d been exonerated by the AAA and CAS tribunals, I wonder if he would have been welcomed back to the top ranks of the sport. There’s a part of me that suspects not. Too much attention had been focused on things that the big shots don’t want the world to know. And Landis was pointing his finger (figuratively speaking) and saying, “The emperor has no clothes.”

Jeff,

Thanks for the link. Good questions you ask. The cynic in me wouldn’t place any bets on whether we get any answers. If the person or persons who leaked the information are ever discovered, they should certainly be subject to the same kinds of penalties (or worse) than the riders would get. A good, old-fashioned 17th century flogging in the town square might be a start. 😉

Jeff, I saw that story and raced over here. So, David Millar’s and Lance Armstrong’s 2010 bio passports both rated a “4” on a scale of 1-10 (lower numbers being good)? Mmm-hmm.

Rant, Landis doesn’t appear to have a friend left in cycling. UCI hates him, obviously. So does USADA, and AFLD, and the guys who run the Tour, and WADA, and USA Cycling, and Lance, and Vaughters. There are people in cycling who have never agreed about anything, but who agree that they hate Landis. Your view can vary about why that might be. Landis strikes me as a blunt guy who doesn’t care much how he’s regarded by the powers that be. He’s also lied a lot.

AIGCP Comments on leaked Suspicion Listhttp://www.cyclingnews.com/news/aigcp-responds-to-leaked-list
Also gives some limited insight regarding how riders are graded.
Additionally, the AIGCP stated their dissatisfaction with the lack of security by anti-doping officials.
“This breach in security should not and will not be tolerated by the teams and athletes,” the AIGCP said. “The firm expectation of the AIGCP is that the UCI will determine who is responsible for this egregious breach of confidentiality and that the responsible party will be dealt with immediately and appropriately.”

As to the quote, I’d say it has ~three chances:
1)A Fat Chance
2)No Chance
3)Not an effin Chance in He!!
YMMV

It’s about as authoritative as People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People issue, but it is more entertaining. Poor Yaroslav Popovych must be absolutely mortified. Since there’s a fudge factor included for “exceeding expectations” — just how low were those expectations? Popo hasn’t won a race since 2007.

In my experience, big shots tend to look out for other big shots. If there are big shots at UCI, WADA, or whatever, making leaks, it’s not too likely that other big shots are going to be overly keen to either go public with IDs or to meet out sever punishment. That’s assuming the leak is a big shot. If it was just some low level secretary, look out.

News about UCI investigation to determine the source of the leak is conspicuously absent. Maybe they are devoting 100% of their energy on the investigation and are too busy to provide progress news? Draw your own conclusions.